The great thing about Modern Irish Gaelic orthography is that it doesn't
present the complete beginner with any really nasty surprises, once he/she
has mastered a few very simple rules. It may look very odd on the screen at
first (particularly to someone whose only language is English) but it really
does match reasonably closely the sounds it is meant to represent! Here are
some of the commonest sounds a beginner needs to tackle first:

á is pronounced as in English word "drawl"

é is pronounced as in English word "say"

í is pronounced as in English word "see"

ó is pronounced as in English word "home"

ú is pronounced as in English word "too"

Dead easy, so far? Then read on:

fh in most cases has no sound, so

"d'fh-" = "d-";

"b'fh" = "b-".

ng is is pronounced as in English word "sang".

ch is pronounced as in Scottish word "loch", German word "ach".

mh, bh can be either as "w" or "v" as in English words "woe" or "vote".

s after/before "i" or before "e" is pronounced as in English "shy";

s after/before "o", "a", "u", is pronounced as in English "dress". like "s".

All consonants come in two forms, known as slender and broad: slender consonants sit right next to "i","e" in the spelling, though it has to be noted that "e" is also commonly used to "broaden" an "i"; broad consonants sit right next to "a","o","u". gc- bp- dt- nd- mb- ts- are apparently impossible (to an English speaker) combinations which are dealt with by the very simple rule of ignoring the second of the pair at the beginning of words.